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Department of Greek & Latin

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The History of the Department

Study of the ancient world was inaugurated at UCL in 1828, two years after the establishment of the College.

UCL and the University of London

From 1826 to 1836 University College London (UCL) was known as the University of London. It was incorporated as University College London by Royal Charter on 28th November 1836. On the same day a corporate body called the University of London was set up by another charter, giving degree-awarding powers.

Not everyone in Britain was in favour of the new college in London, nor did the Establishment accept its founders’ wishes to disseminate learning to all social groups.  The populist conservative magazine John Bull carried several attacks on ‘the Cockney College’ or ‘the radical infidel College’, as this example from July 1825 shows:
   Come bustle, my neighbours, give over your labours,  
   Leave digging and delving, and churning:
   New lights are preparing to set you a staring,
   And fill all your noddles with learning.
   Each dustman shall speak, both in Latin and Greek,  
   And tinkers beat bishops in knowledge –
   If the opulent tribe will consent to subscribe
   To build up a new Cockney College.

Luckily, the newly appointed professors were able to fight back against the snobbery and religious conformity that lay behind such attacks.  When George Long delivered the first inaugural lecture given by a professor of Greek in this college, on 1st November 1830, he commended his colleagues for ‘offering the advantages of higher instruction to all classes, but particularly to those who had before been excluded from it’.  

Greek and Latin at UCL

Greek and Latin have a glorious history at University College London.  Professors of Greek and Latin were among the holders of the first chairs, in the late 1820s, and influenced the formation and history of the College.  Some of the most distinguished classical scholars of the past two hundred years (among them, a poet of international renown) taught at UCL.  
Here are a few moments in the history of Greek and Roman studies at UCL; these passages are based on The World of UCL (4th edition, 2018) and supplemented with other material.